September 2020 – Present
South Marengo County Water & Fire Protection Authority
Linden, Alabama
Logo Design
I designed the logo for South Marengo Water.
Website Design
I designed the website for South Marengo Water. The website uses the GovPress theme for WordPress. It is hosted on a Cloud VPS with OpenLiteSpeed web server. The website is powered by Quic.cloud for CDN and to improve page loading time. The website is provisioned with a WildCard SSL certificate, with HSTS Preloading, and DNSSec security at the registrar level. The website has basic contact information, links, and live weather feed. There is also a modified NWS warning feed that appears during active watches/warnings. I have integrated their EyeOnWater app into the page with links to the appropriate app/site based on the browser or device.
Online Payments
I designed the online payment system to utilize Stripe for Credit/Debit Card payments and Plaid for Bank account/ACH payments. South Marengo office staff can take payments over the phone or in person using the same backend system. This was setup with a convenience fee to cover the cost of the transaction charge so that the cost of accepting cards is passed to the customer, not South Marengo. Online Payments using Apple Pay, and other browser/device specific payment methods have been integrated. This website uses WordPress and Woocommerce and the Astra theme. Social Login with Google/Facebook is available. Customers can login to view past payments and save payment information for future payments.
The Online Bill Payment system provides the opportunity for the customer to add additional information such as new/updated address and contact information. A custom workflow was added to promote the EyeOnWater app with the checkout flow. Transactional Email is provided by Postmark with PowerDMARC to provide email security and spam/abuse protection. Gravity forms was utilized within the Woocommerce checkout flow to collect the additional information. Convenience fee is added to the price of the bill pay and depends on the type of transaction ie bank or card. Receipts and payment notifications are sent to the Office and Customers.
I setup and assist with the management of the South Marengo Water Facebook Page.
Phone & Information Technology
I made recommendations to change the internet provider to T-Mobile for Government and to provision PTT (push to talk) functionality using esChat so that office/field employees can communicate more effectively. I assisted in the transition of the phone system from one-line phone/fax being shared by two office employees to Nextiva VOIP utilizing an IVR system to route calls and allow multiple calls/faxes at the same time. The internet/phone changes recommended, resulted in a net savings of about $200 per month and provided additional features and services. I was able to assist with networking and various computer related tasks at the office, including setting up custom spreadsheets, and document sharing between the two computers. I setup a cloud based document synchronization service using Microsoft OneDrive to synchronize documents and to make documents available in the cloud for disaster and remote access. Email and file access utilizes IceWarp Professional with desktop applications for easier use. Password and Access control is provisioned with Okta to eliminate multiple usernames/passwords and to improve the ease of use for multiple systems.